


Take a step back

by gabsrambles



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-10
Updated: 2018-05-02
Packaged: 2019-04-21 03:22:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14275854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gabsrambles/pseuds/gabsrambles
Summary: The Worldkillers are defeated and Alex is left in the aftermath.





	1. Part One: Misery

**Author's Note:**

> This is an angst fest. I just love these two and really think they could work. Warning, as stated, the worldkillers have been defeated. Pretty big hint that there's a major character death there.

It starts as something sad.

A bar. Because that’s where so many things start. A bartender with a heavy pour and fifty dollars sitting in his pocket. A scratched wooden bar top covered in water rings. A bottle of something far too expensive ready to go.

She doesn’t normally drink top shelf, even though she enjoys it. But tonight she couldn’t give a fuck. It sits, ready, a quarter gone and the light hitting it just so. It’s glinting like amber, something rich and from the earth, something natural and heady.

Maybe Alex loves whiskey too much.

But it burns just right and the bartender keeps adding a cube or two of ice to her glass and every now and again, she bites down hard on a half melted cube, crunching it and letting it numb her tongue.

Sometimes her body doesn’t feel like _hers_. Or maybe like it’s no _longer_ hers. As if someone took it and rearranged its pieces, like it grew while detached from her and then they tried to stitch her back together but the parts don’t match any more.

Yet they do.

Like puzzle pieces that look like they fit, the colours match, the little line finishes off another and matches perfectly, but you have to press too hard to get the pieces to snap into place. And they don’t snap, but resist. A bit of force and it seems to work.

But you know, deep down, that later you’re going to have to give in and separate them, that it’s not _really_ the piece. That you’ve done it badly. Fucked it up. All those pieces just mashed in where they don’t belong. But don’t worry, they look fine if you take a step back.

The bartender fills her glass, the liquid sloshing and Alex’s leg bouncing, heel balanced on the rung of the stool. The bartender drops another cube of ice in and Alex throws him a smile and hopes it’s not as bitter as it feels. Or as pathetic.

Someone slides into the seat next to her at the bar, the stool scraping a little. It’s difficult to stop frustration from flickering across her features. She doesn’t try that hard, anyway. Tensing on her chair, she does manage to resist shifting away. People are the last thing Alex wants. Except the bartender. He can stay.

“I’ll have what she’s having.”

Whipping her head around, Alex narrows her eyes.

“Lena.”

“It’s nice to see you, too, Alex.”

And Alex just blinks at her, at Lena Luthor in a pencil skirt and blazer that are worth more than the building itself. Probably. Alex doesn’t work in real estate.

“I didn’t mean—how did you find me?”

And red creeps its way up Lena’s neck. She hides it well, throwing a smile at the bartender when he puts a glass down in front of her, a few ice cubes, and pours her drink.

“I illegally tracked your phone.”

Alex’s eyebrows raised.

“Kara was worried,” Lena adds, like that’s an excuse.

It just makes Alex’s eyebrows raise higher. “I saw her this morning.”

Though what she _wants_ to say, is along the lines of “and you don’t deny my sister anything, do you?”

But she really doesn’t have the energy, and instead takes another small sip, ice clinking delicately.

“Yes. We all see you during the day. You do your job. You show up. Then we don’t see you.”

Alex stares at the bar top. Runs her nail in a scratch there. Wishes she’d drunk more than a quarter of the bottle.

“We all miss her.”

And Alex closes her eyes at those words. Feels that lump form, rock hard and just small enough that people can’t see just how much it’s choking her. Her eyes sting and she sucks in a breath, silently. She refuses to show how much that felt like Lena slipped a knife between her ribs, quick and quiet and painless until she moves.

She opens her eyes and it’s like the world is slapping her for it, the reality of those words still there, whether she wants them or not.

“Alex—we all—we all…”

And that pain is laced through Lena’s voice, aching and wavering. Because they all do miss Sam. And she forgets, sometimes, that Lena knew her longer. Knew her well.

And that Lena Luthor loves so rarely, but when she does, it’s with everything she has.

It’s been easy to ignore them all. That night feels like forever ago, but it was only months. Two, she thinks. Two months since she killed Sam. Since it was up to Alex, the others detained, weakened, but Sam was too strong and the weapon they forged was in Alex’s hand and when she plunged it into Sam’s chest, pressed in close and an arm wrapped around her back to hold her closer, Reign faded and Sam was left behind, a trail of blood at the corner of her lips and some semblance of peace on her face when she’d raised a hand to Alex’s cheek and kissed her, so gently it had shattered something in Alex’s chest.

Their second kiss.

The first had seemed to set the loss of Sam in motion.

The second had ended a split second after Sam had.

So yes, they all miss her.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Lena whispers.

And everything _hurts_. Lena’s words hurt more and that lump is too big and Alex can’t breathe through it anymore, can’t hide it. Her eyes are burning and she gets up, stool shrieking over the ground and flees.

And Lena Luthor follows.

Because of course she does.

The street is lit up with dull lights that don’t spread far enough. This part of town is poorer, dirtier. The perfect place to hide—or so she’d thought. But they’d all left her alone as long as they could. Kara with her eyes that follow her everywhere, aching with loss. But Sam was just another loss to add to the pile on her shoulders, and she carries it better, and Alex doesn’t know whether that knowledge should make her sob or feel relieved her sister isn’t this broken. Mostly, she does both, that last daughter of Krypton who lost another tie to the planet she’s carried longest of all so accustomed to loss. As if she expects it, now.

Kara could find her anytime, but is trying to respect her. So instead, Lena has taken it into her own hands.

“Leave me alone.”

It’s meant to sound angry. To make her leave. But instead, in this empty street in which her feet slosh through puddles and a light rain falls like mist, it tears out like something raw, something _aching_ and Lena is just a few steps away and she has to hear it, that pain in Alex’s voice that makes her feel weak. Useless. She can wrap it away during the day. But here, in the night, everything brims to the surface, soaked in alcohol and regret and she feels it to her bones, this ache of missing Sam. The guilt that cloys her. Sinks deep. Hooks in.

She just wants to feel different, for once. To not be swamped in this heady feeling of sadness.

That lump is prickling, burning; there’s a stinging behind her eyes.

“Do you really want me to do that?”

And Lena is so close that she hears those words like they’re whispered in her ear and Alex stops dead, a hand over her chest. Her fingers clawing at it, sinking in to the cloth over her heart. She whips around and Lena is a mere foot away, face damp from the rain and the green of her eyes the only colour in the dank, dark night.

She’s staring right at Alex, waiting for an answer, so pale in the light, lips so red at the cool bite of the night. She’ll go. Alex sees that. She’ll leave, if that’s what Alex really wants. She’s played her hand, tried, turned up, pushed just a little. Said something she’s probably wanted to say since this all happened, since that weapon slid into Sam and hot red blood dripped down Alex’s hands.

The second knife she’s slid into someone that left her broken afterwards.

She closes her eyes, feels that misty rain gather on her eyelids, and it’s all she sees behind them: the shock in Reign’s face, the peace in Sam’s.

She can almost feel that gentle brush of her lips, the mere graze of her fingertips on Alex’s cheek.

She opens her mouth to tell Lena to leave. But nothing escapes. When she opens her eyes, Lena is still staring at her, a statue in the rain.

Alex just wants to feel something different.

So she steps forward, slowly. Waits to see if Lena will step back, away, will leave. She doesn’t, she just watches Alex, waiting.

Nothing makes sense, and Alex could crawl out of her skin, slip into anything else if would stop this lump in her throat from completely choking her. Would stop the way everyone treads around her like she could fall apart at any moment.

Just an inch away, Alex pauses. Her lips are so close to Lena’s, she can feel the damp warmth of her breath wash over them. Lena’s pupils are blown wide as they stare straight at her, right into her, as if she can see the way that Alex is crumbling apart. Finally, Alex closes her eyes again, slips them shut and pushes forward, her lips barely grazing over Lena’s, breath catching in her chest at the feel of something, anything. Her fingertips barely flutter over the lapels of Lena’s jacket, hovering, unsure, just like her mouth. Until Lena surges into it, lips pressed to Alex’s, hot tongue sliding into her mouth and hand clasping the back off her neck.

It’s against everything they should be doing, everything that should make sense, but Alex can’t find it in her to care. Not when fingers tug her shirt out of her jeans and a heated hand slides under it, over her stomach, nails leaving trails of fire that make her feel _here_ for the first time in months. There’s an echoing need, an echoing desperation in Lena’s touch, in the tug of her fingers, the bite of her teeth over Alex’s lips, the raw rasp of the gasp against the shell of Alex’s ear.

Later, when they eventually make it to Alex’s cold apartment, she’s still fuzzy from whiskey and realises Lena seems that way too. A few before she came? Courage to face Alex after months of rejection, two months of watching everyone try to connect and Alex push herself into further isolation.

Later, in that apartment, it seems like this was where the night was going when Alex first stepped into that bar. Like it couldn’t have been going any other way. It’s Lena who didn’t push her, until tonight. Lena, who has stood close, shoulder brushing her own, but didn’t ply her with questions, didn’t tell her it was all right. Didn’t beg her to speak, didn’t try to push herself onto Alex. Almost as if she understood. Like she knew what Alex needed when Alex herself was lost to it.

Maybe that’s why now, with need clawing in her chest, it’s so easy for Alex to turn where she’s pushed against the wall, forearms pressing into it and Lena pressed against her back, hand down the front of her pants while Alex threw her head back against her shoulder, where she could turn her face into the side of Lena’s sweaty neck and bite. It’s easy to turn and face her, to push her backwards until they’re both falling onto the bed, clothes lost by that wall, scattered in the living room, left by the bed. It’s easy to throw herself at someone who seems as desperate to do the same, an unmovable object and an unstoppable force, a collision of sparks and thunderous noise.

Who is who, she doesn’t know. Just knows that Lena tastes like salt and grief, of hidden depths. Ones that echo in the heart of Alex and reverberate too deep. Lena likes to run her nails down Alex’s spine, leave slight red lines that make Alex arch her back, beg for more. Lena likes to bite, likes Alex to sink her teeth into the soft part of her inner thigh, into her hip bone. It’s all aggression and desperation until their foreheads are pressed together and hands are between each other’s legs and Lena opens her eyes, green and pupils still blown wide and her gaze locks on Alex’s and she’s lost count of how many times they’ve both come apart that night, but that time is like a reckoning, like pieces that are ripped apart and then glued back together.

Like that damned puzzle, stepping back to see it actually looks right, if you ignore those pieces were pressed where they didn’t belong.

She tastes like salt and grief. A taste Alex knows from running her tongue over her own lips anxiously the last two months.

Salt and grief, the name of a song the two of them could write.


	2. Part Two: Lonely

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So glad you liked it! Your comments are the best-each and every one made my day. Here: have some more angst :D.

Way back when, at the sound of the word “Luthor”, Alex thought the woman behind the name might destroy her sister.

She didn’t know that Lena Luthor will destroy Alex instead. Or is she doing the opposite?

Alex isn’t sure, and she isn’t feeling too inclined to find out. Introspection is too hard, too scary.

After everything, she lies awake at night, eyes glued to the ceiling and heart in her throat, thrumming away so hard she’s lightheaded. Sleep either alludes her, or traps her, and when it does the latter, she wakes up with the feeling of sticky red heat on her fingers and the sound someones breath makes when you slip a blade into their chest.

A gasp, that could be shock or the final meetings of expectations; Alex will never know.

She should by now. She has enough under her belt. Two feels like more than enough.

On those nights with her heart beating too hard, a sound in her ears, the giant expanse of the bed overwhelming her, wondering _what if what if what if_ she can’t handle any more introspection, not when she feels like she’s drowning in it already. So she kicks the tangled, sweat-damp sheets of her legs and goes to Lena and doesn’t think about why.

Her mind is quieter, there.

Too focused on sensation.

On the way it’s always so late, but Lena answers the door, every time. Rarely sleep tousled. The few times she is, blinking a little sleepily, cheeks sleep-pink, hair in a bun high on her had, sloppy and tendrils falling out, Alex ignores the twinge low in her belly.

It only happens like that a few times though. Mostly, Lena answers as awake as Alex is. Alex always pushes off where she’s leaning agains the doorframe, wondering if this is really her, if she should leave, should go home and let herself stew like she has done for two months, alone and desperately lonely—but as soon as the door opens, and Lena gives her the smallest of smiles, she goes in. The door clicks shut quietly and Alex peels her jacket off.

That’s how it always starts.

Sometimes they’re both needy. Alex ends up pushed against the island counter that separates the living room and the kitchen. In seconds, she’ll be sitting on the cold marble, pants being pulled off and Lena between her legs, fingers or tongue or both making it impossible for Alex to feel like she was just an hour ago, alone in bed. Or Lena is shoved against the wall, legs hard between each other’s and grinding. Bent over a sofa, Lena against her back and hand inside her from behind as Alex twists uncomfortably, hand up to wrap around the back of Lena’s neck and pull her closer so if she turns her head enough, she can just manage to kiss her. It’s like the coming together of desperation, the burning desire for something _other_ they both feel in the other and push back against, pull forward. Fingers fumble at buttons, tug at strings, unhook, drag down and over skin. Red lines trace Lena’s shoulder’s, so pale, the red like a glare, a beacon for Alex’s lips to trace over later when, if, they slow down. Pink bite marks drop over the hardness of Alex’s belly, the softness of Lena’s. The sound of panting in her ear, a keen, crying out, a grunt when she begs for more, for it harder, for faster, for something different.

Other times, it’s slower. Intense, still desperate, still fast at times. But they make it to the bed first, clothes pulled off, a foot stuck in jeans and awkward hopping while Lena laughs from the mattress, leaning back on her elbows in nothing but underwear and an unbuttoned white shirt that’s gaping open and Alex wonders, briefly, how it took her so long to realise she was gay. That laugh is like something giving in the room, like an easing of something painful. Delicious. It lights up Lena’s face and the ghosts in her eyes fade and Alex grins as she finally frees her foot and falls to the bed. There’s more purposeful placement of lips to a pulse point, scraping of teeth, sinking them in into areas pre-thought out, somewhere that makes Alex’s hips buck up, chasing fingers, or causes Lena to arch into her, her body hot, burning under the palms of Alex’s hand. Legs wrapped around a waist, canting of hips, the burning of her thighs.

However it goes, it always eases that weight in her chest, that lump in her throat, and afterwards, they both sleep, nothing but an ankle touching the other or a hand thrown out and pressed against the small of a back.

It’s a peace, of sorts. A cure for that aching loneliness, that guilt. An outlet for it all, for the anger, one that’s absorbed and given back ten fold.

A challenge. An acceptance.

It’s something, where before it felt like there was nothing.

 

* * *

 

Kara finally snaps. She was always going to. It happens when Alex is leaving the DEO. It’s two am and it’s deserted. Something smashed through three buildings before they were able to bing it down and find a transport big enough to move it to a secure location. The debrief took forever and Alex’s eyes are heavy—she feels like she may actually go home and be able to sleep. In the back of her mind, though, she’s thinking she could go to Lena’s. Ensure she sleeps.

A gentle pressure on her arm makes her turn around in an empty hallway and her hands go clammy as soon as she sees Kara, out of her suit and glasses on, squinting at her with concern in her eyes. That lump comes up immediately, and Alex needs to go. To run. To leave. She’s already breathing too fast just at this, the sound of that night deafening in her ears and she _knows_ what this is. Knows it’s some kind of PTSD, anxiety, trauma, guilt— _knows_ it but can’t face it and facing Kara means facing that.

But all she can feel is the slip of blood on her hands. Blood that looks human, red like her own. Sam’s gasp, the echoing sound of it in her ears. The way one hand tried to flail at the hilt of the blade pressed tight between them but dropped quickly, like she couldn’t be bothered. That kiss, that aching, brushing of lips that Alex still feels like a stamp, proof of her actions. A memory of what can never be taken back.

And Kara’s eyes, wide on the other side of the roof of the building, one Worldkiller in her grasp they’d been able to weaken enough to detain. Unlike Sam, too strong. Those blue blue eyes from over Sam’s shoulder, dead in her arms, and Alex’s trembling lips, Kara’s furrowed brow, her crying out. The “no” that was pulled from her throat, so raw, so pained, at the sight of Sam, dead by Alex’s hand.

It’s like bathing in her own misery, meeting that gaze again, and Alex misses her sister but she needs to go.

Why is this corridor so empty. She can hear her own breath.

“Alex. Please. Maybe—maybe you can come over?”

She wants to say yes. She wants to sit on that sofa and press into her sister’s side, curled under a blanket. She wants to fall apart and let Kara pick her up. But that’s not fair, when Kara needs it too and Alex doesn’t have it in her right now.

“I need to sleep, Kara.”

Those eyes, that sky blue, like crystal—Kara is like a book, her emotions play out to be read, there on her face, in her look, bared for the world. So unprotected.

“You can sleep at my place.” She pauses. Swallows. “It’s been three months, and I’ve, I’ve tried to give you space.” She has. “I don’t want to follow you when you don’t want me to, just because I can. But I miss you.”

She can’t stay at Kara’s. Not tonight. It’s Kara’s night with Ruby, Wynn there until Kara gets back since she was called away for Supergirl duties. Ruby goes between Kara’s and Lena’s, and Alex avoids her at all cost, guilt harsh in her blood, in her stomach, in her very lungs. She can’t look Ruby in the eye, that shattered girl who means so much to her. Alex avoids her with everything she has. She can’t even think of her, that ache so deep it feels like it’s set into her marrow.

That lump in Alex’s throat is growing, spilling out of her, her eyes are wet, she can feel that. Her hands clench, nails biting into her palm. “I miss you too.”

And shit, she really does.

And Kara actually lets out a sob that sounds like it’s been held inside her since that night. It could be relief at Alex’s words, or grief, or anything else. “You do?”

“Kara.” And Alex steps closer, because she has to. “Of course I do.” Her voice is low, a whisper, like these words are crawling out of her even as she tries to stop them. “I just…I don’t know how to be with people anymore.”

And Kara takes a step closer too, slowly, like she’s scared Alex will run. Her hand comes up, presses to Alex’s bicep. Not holding her there. Comfort. “You don’t need to be anything. You just need to be there, that’s all.”

And that damn spills, wetness on her cheeks and Alex’s chest caves, this time, a sob gasping out. There’re words there she doesn’t mean to say, doesn’t deserve to let out. “I’m so sorry Kara.”

They spill out anyway.

And Kara looks as if she’s fighting everything to not step right into her space, to not pull her into a hug, when Alex knows her body is screaming not to come any closer, because if Kara does, Alex will break. She knows it.

“Why? What? What are you sorry for?” Kara’s voice is hoarse, her eyes wide, like she knows she’s close to something, finally.

And Alex doesn’t deserve this, this care. What does Kara mean, what for?

“I’m so sorry I killed Sam.” Her voice is terrible in her own ears, torn, a whisper that’s rough, edged. “I’m so sorry Kara. I’m so sorry.”

And Kara’s eyes widen farther, red-rimmed and tear filled and she finally does step even closer, carefully, her other hand taking Alex’s other bicep and she’s staring Alex right in the eye, the sincerity like fire, like ice, like anything that hurts and eats away at something. “No,” her voice is so low, it fills Alex up. “No no no. Alex, no. I’m sorry. I am so, so sorry.” Her voice sounds like Alex’s, ruined with the truth. “It should have been me. Not you. It was meant to be me. I never wanted you to have to…to have to… It should have been me. It was _meant_ to be me.”

And her cheeks shine where the glaring corridor light hits them, wet.

That _no_ that Kara screamed meant so many things. Alex’s chin drops against her chest and her breath shudders and then Kara finally snaps, again, and pulls her against her and Alex sobs again at the relief of it, at the feel of her sister, absent since the funeral, and Alex burrows her hot damp face into Kara’s neck and wraps her arms around her back and may break apart from the sobs that escape her.

It’s all too much and she finally tears away. “You don’t need to be sorry.” And Kara desperately shakes her head. “It’s true. You can’t take every burden.”

And she can see, all over Kara’s face, that she doesn’t agree. That she would take every one of them if she could. Her shoulders bowed and heavy already, she would take more if needed, every day.

“Neither can you.”

Kara’s words are like a slap, no matter how gently she says them and Alex has to go.

She can’t do this, she feels sliced open, exposed; everything hurts.

And Kara steps back, swallows heavily and swipes at her cheeks, and lets her go.

Walking away is like a betrayal, but Alex does it anyway. She stands in the elevator and wipes at her own cheeks but it’s like it does nothing, they’re constantly wet and she just wipes harder, frustrated.

She should go home. She can’t go anywhere like this. It’s like Kara’s forgiveness, her own fractured guilt, have flayed her open, and Alex should go home.

Lena opens her door like she always does, but this time she pauses. Eyes widen. That green is a green you could drown in. Get lost in. Like an old growth forest, something wild and untameable, something that shouldn’t colour a human body.

“Alex…”

She’s a mess, she knows. Blotched cheeks and tears that won’t stop, and her nose is probably running. This isn’t where she should be. This isn’t what they do, or what Lena is supposed to be. But Lena’s hand reaches forward and wraps around her own and pulls Alex inside. The door shuts behind her, and Alex has held it in all the way in the cab, the tears silent and embarrassing. But the sobs she thought were done when she emptied them out into Kara’s neck come back, and her chest almost breaks with it.

Lena is there in a second, arms around her and pulling her in. Her neck is soft and Alex presses her face into it, lips pressed tight against the skin like she can stop this, block them, hold them in. Her body shudders with it and Lena just pulls her in tighter, tilts her head so Alex can feel Lena’s lips against her ear, and Alex clings to her as if she’ll fall apart.

“Oh, Alex.”

It’s so quiet, a whisper against her ear.

Alex pulls back, their cheeks together and she doesn’t know why she’s surprised that Lena’s is as wet as hers. Her lips brush over it, and all she tastes is salt.

The kiss is slow. Soft. Alex’s hands pull back from Lena’s shoulders and she cups her cheeks, her thumbs brushing over her cheekbones as Lena’s tongue brushes over hers. Her thumb gathers tears.

That need isn’t like before, it isn’t eating at her. But it’s bubbling in her chest, pushing at her insides and as the kiss deepens even more, Lena pulls away with the softest of gasps, her forehead against Alex’s, their eyes closed.

“Alex…”

“Please.” She hates the sound of her voice like that, but she needs this. Whatever it is, she wants it.

“Are you sure that’s what you want right now?”

“Yes.” A pause. “Do you?”

And Lena nods, their lips meeting half way and the tears have finally stopped. It’s messy, hands pushing into hair and tangling and bodies pressed flush, tight, like there’s a fear of anything getting between them. The bed bounces as they land against it. Clothing is peeled off achingly slow, piece by piece, lips pressed to any skin that’s shown. There’s the occasional shuddering of breath, an aching gasp. Alex slides her fingers into Lena’s hair, tugs her back up from her belly, let’s her fingers wrap in the length of it and kisses her. Her legs are around Lena’s waist, pulling her closer. Something is building in her, a need to have Lena as close as possible and Lena rocks against her as if she feels it too. Skins slides over skin and when she comes, it’s with Lena’s mouth on hers and she’s still not close enough.

And Lena doesn’t move, doesn’t shift away. She lets her weight go loose on Alex, her lips pressed just below Alex’s ear and Alex leaves her legs around her waist, the wet press of them together something that feels almost sacred, there, with that pressure that’s been in her chest all but gone and her eyes aching.

The sound of their breath is a rhythm her heart matches. Slow, by now. Steady, by the time Alex finally speaks.

“I miss her, Lena. And I—I feel, so…”

The words still won’t come, but Lena nods into her neck.

“I know.”

That’s like forgiveness—those two words are like the feel of Kara again after months, like this moment five minutes ago. They’re like the tears on her cheeks, dry and testimony to everything that’s been eating her alive.

Cathartic.

And Lena shifts against her, somehow does manage to press closer and Alex splays her hand over her spine, and the other hand is back on her hair, cradling the back of her head.

“I spoke to Kara.”

“Good.” The reply is instant, and Alex can feel the smile Lena gives immediately against her neck.

“I ran away from her after.”

That’s…”

“Expected?”

And Lena shifts, ever so slightly, so she’s on her side, Alex rolling with her so their fronts are still pressed close, her legs untangling then one lifting to press up between Lena’s legs, Lena’s hand sliding over her hip to press against the small of her back and keep them together.

Her hair is wild against the pillow, her face mere inches away. Her smile is soft, and so gentle, Alex almost has to look away.

“A little expected.” Lena shifts forward then, does something new in this aftermath, and presses her lips to Alex’s shoulder, a little stamp of approval, before she’s back against the pillow. “But it’s also okay. At least you spoke.”

Lena, Alex realises, has been the go between. The friend to them both. Has she been there for Kara when Alex couldn’t? Shit, Alex hopes she has. When Kara was locked in the guilt that it shouldn’t have been Alex, was Lena there? For Ruby and Kara. The solid one. Lena, the one who is simply always _there_ for all of them—aways shows, finds solutions, comforts. Alex’s stomach twists, the lump is back, small and present.

There is so much she wants to say. _Thank you_ is one, building on her tongue. Thank you for being there for Kara when Alex has seen what builds in Lena’s eyes near her sister. Despite what’s Alex has seen. Thank you for being there for Ruby.

Thank you for _this_ , whatever this thing is, between them, that feels bigger, feels like it’s growing into something solid, something defined, something too big but too small, all at the same time. Eclipsed by everything else in the universe, but the eclipse of their own.

Lena wouldn’t want her thank you, so Alex kisses her instead. Feels Lena’s fingers press into her skin, shifts her leg, just slightly, and feels Lena move against her, slippery and warm and _there_.

She pours her thank yous into the brush of her tongue, into the kiss she places on Lena’s jaw, into the rock of her thigh, the push of her hips. Into the trail of her fingers over freckles and pale skin and the silk of her hip.

She pours her thank you into Lena, and hopes she feels it.


	3. Part Three: Stitches

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for coming on this ride, and for reading and commenting. It feeds my soul :D

Alex takes a breath. Ignores the clammy slip of her hands. Sucks in a breath and adjusts her grip on the plastic bag in her hands.

Finally, she knocks.

Kara opens the door and the smile on her face is so bright Alex almost looks away from it. A second passes, so short, and Kara freezes, hand gripping the edge of the door and looking at Alex as if she can’t believe what she’s seeing.

Swallowing, Alex holds up the bag. Tries to smile. “I bring potstickers.”

The words want to stick in her throat, to choke her, to refuse to come out. They feel practiced, because they are. A carefree lilt that loses the carefree when you’ve said it over and over in your head, trying to remember how you _used_ to sound. So she drops her hand back to her side. Lets her smile fade to something a little more genuine.

“I thought maybe, if you weren’t busy, we could hang.”

And that faltered smile on Kara’s face grows again, and she nods. “Of course. Always.”

She steps back and holds the door open and Alex steps through and stops dead, because in Kara’s kitchen, holding a glass of red wine, with lipstick that matches the liquid in her hand, is Lena, eyes wide.

“Lena’s here too—we were going to have dinner. The more the merrier.”

And Kara just walks back into the kitchen and reaches for the scotch she keeps for both Lena and Alex and starts getting ice, oblivious to the way Alex is standing and Lena is frozen and they both just stare at her.

Just the night before, Alex was tracing her gratitude across Lena’s skin with her tongue, breathing it into her lungs, running the letters over the most sensitive parts of her. Because Kara’s been struggling and Alex has been struggling, and despite struggling herself, Lena hasn’t let either of them feel alone.

And that evidence is right here, in Kara’s apartment where Lena has shown up, because Kara needs people. Craves them. The connections and moments and all of it.

But there’s also something about Lena, around Kara.

And now the three of them are in this room that suddenly feels far too small, because Alex has a trail of dulled marks long her stomach from Lena’s teeth and they’re missing someone.

The thought comes out of nowhere.

They’re missing someone. The three of them were brought together by Sam, really. Alex never hung out with Lena, or even Lena _and_ Kara, before Sam was around. And Alex would try not to stare at Sam, and Sam would send her soft looks over the brim of her wine glass and Alex just felt so _full_ then. Finally, after Maggie, her chest didn’t feel tight anymore, like she was drowning. Rather, it felt expanded, like it was too big to really fit all that _possibility_ that danced along her nerve endings at just a fluttered glance from Sam.

Right before Sam realised she was missing moments, and right before Alex kissed Sam, or Sam kissed Alex, either way, that kiss right before everything went to fucking hell—she’d just felt so _full_. So grateful. The next day, Reign was there and Sam never reappeared and a short week later, Alex killed her.

Just like that.

A to B to C.

And somehow, now, they’re at T and Alex doesn’t know when they got there. Or how.

“Hey, Alex.” Lena smiles at her and it’s soft and easy and she’s in jeans and a hoody. All her work clothes left somewhere else. There’s a twist in Alex’s stomach, like when Lena’s sleep ruffled when she answers the door, because she likes her like this. Dressed down, but still Lena. “I didn’t know you were coming, sorry. Or I would have let you two—” and her gaze flicks to Kara, pouring scotch, then back to Alex “—have some time.”

Alex uselessly raises the bag. “I thought I’d bring dinner.”

Lena puts her glass down. “I’m going to head off.”

Kara’s head jerks up and she puts a hand on Lena’s arm. “No—you don’t have to do that. Stay, we can all hang. Like be…”

And Kara’s mouth snaps shut before she can say “like before” but they all hear it, the words dense and clattering around the room, and it seems that Alex’s morbid thought of before has caught up to all them, cloaked them all in something too heavy.

“Lena.” Alex tries to smile, tries to push through. “Stay. Don’t go on my account.”

“No, really—Ruby is with Winn and she likes hanging out with him, but I did promise her I wouldn’t be too late.”

Ruby.

Another words that drops like thunder in the room. Alex almost falls over at the clash of it colliding with the others.

Kara’s eyes dart to Alex, and Alex wants to jam her hands in her back pocket, but one is full of potstickers, so she just sticks one in but feels unbalanced.

Everything is reeling and this doesn’t feel like their life. Lena shouldn’t be talking about Ruby’s care, instead Sam should be rushing in, late as always, with Ruby trailing, eyes lighting up at the sight of Alex, or Sam would be alone, making excuses about a babysitter. Or, maybe, Alex and Sam would be stumbling in together, wincing apologies and Ruby rolling her eyes behind them.

Should be.

Will never be.

Could never be, probably.

Lena gives Kara a hug and it’s tight and real and Kara clings for a second and there’s another twist in Alex’s gut, because she’s left her sister for so long when she needed someone. And when Lena pulls away she grabs her bag and pauses in front of Alex.

“It was nice to see you, Alex.”

And she hugs her, and Alex, with everything swarming inside her, holds on a little too tightly too. Tries not to drown in the smell of her, an anchor the last month she never though she’d need.

And then she’s gone and Kara is blinking at her. Smiling. “I’m glad you two are friends.”

Alex has no idea what to say to that. Are they friends?

She almost startles when she realises the answer.

Because they are. Friends. Alex talks to her more than anyone, late nights in bed or naked on the floor on the rug in Alex’s living room. Alex cried on her.

They _are_ friends.

“Me too,” Alex answers. And means it.

She almost wants to ask. “Do you know?”

She doesn’t ask it though, and she isn’t even sure which things she wants to know if Kara’s aware of.

 _Do you know the way Lena looks at you?_ Or, rather, _looked?_ Alex isn’t even sure which it is anymore.

Or, _do you know I’ve been sleeping with her?_

But she doesn’t, just takes the scotch and it’s rich on her tongue and she makes sure not to drink it too fast—Kara’s never obvious about it, but she always keeps an eye on the drinks in Alex’s hand, a habit impossible to break.

One Alex can’t even begrudge her, because Alex plays along lines like she was born there, filtering one way or the other, making everyone hold their breath as she almost topples either side.

She’s missed this. They fight over potstickers and end up eating ice-cream straight from the container, swapping two flavours between themselves. It’s quieter. Less energy, less laughter. But not devoid of it, either.

And later, they’re under a blanket and Kara’s head is on her shoulder and a movie is flickering on the TV, the sound low and wrapping around them.

“I’m glad you came over,” Kara says.

“Me too.”

And she really is.

And the breath Kara draws in is shuddering, her body moving with it and Alex echoes it and Kara’s hand clasps her knee. Slowly, Alex puts her own hand over Kara’s and clasps it. The TV flickers on and the air feels as thick as whatever is sitting in her throat does.

Yet, somehow, it’s easier to breathe.

 

* * *

 

Lena comes over a few nights later, and Alex knows Ruby is with Kara. She opens the door with her chest feeling lighter and she realises, like a shock that travels down her spine, that she’s genuinely looking forward to seeing Lena. When the door swing open, Lena’s ducking her head slightly, so when she looks up at Alex, it’s from under her lashes, her teeth worrying her lip.

Alex’s stomach swoops.

“Sorry about the other night.”

Alex has to take a second, before she realises what for. “Why?”

“I didn’t want to…make anything awkward.”

Alex wraps her fingers around her wrist and tugs her in, Lena letting her with a soft smile. She kicks the door shut.

“It wasn’t awkward.”

Lena just raises her eyebrow at her, one perfect arch, as she tugs off her coat.

Alex shrugs, feels something like a smile play at her lips. “It was a little awkward.”

“Yes, it was.” Lena drapes her jacked over the couch and they just stand and stare at each other for a second.

Usually, by now, they’ve stepped into each other’s space, lips on the soft part behind an ear or teeth dragging over a bottom lip. Hands running through hair or blunt nails dragging over skin. There’s a hint, in the start, of how the night will go—gentle, desperate, hard, fast.

Instead, tonight, they stare at each other.

Alex should step towards her. Let her fingers run through her hair. Maybe tug a little. Stop whatever heat that is filling the space between them, so different to the usual.

“Do you want a glass of wine?” Alex asks, and does none of that.

For a second, Alex thinks Lena may push back. May quirk her lips and get that look on her face, and kiss her, push her backwards until these thoughts of heat and a drink and a look under eyelashes are gone and they are what they know. Fingers and lips and tongues and skin. A sinking softness. A disastrous distraction. One that knows what it is and doesn’t play at anything more.

But, then the corner of Lena’s mouth _does_ quirks up, but it’s a crooked smile that’s new. “I would.”

And she follows Alex, but stops at the counter and leans on it on her elbows, cups her chin in her hand watches as Alex pulls out a bottle of white. Takes down two glasses. Unscrews it. The sound of the wine pouring into the glasses is delicious. Alex leaves the bottle between them, some kind of barrier to this heat, this warmth, this comfortable _something_. They clink their glasses together between them, Alex staying in the kitchen, hip bones digging into the counter as she leans on it.

The wine is tart on her tongue and she takes another small sip immediately.

Lena’s glass makes a soft sound as she puts it back down.

Sam’s made the same sound, in this same kitchen, months ago. Back when she existed, and breathed, and _lived_. Bach when possibility filled the air, easy to understand and palpable. A moment that left a fluttering in Alex’s stomach, a smile on her face, warmth in her cheeks.

“Where did you just go?”

Somehow, that bottle isn’t doing its job between them. Everything feels soft, in this filtered light and small space. Lena’s elbow only a foot away from her own on the counter.

Alex swallows, swirls the wine in her glass to avoid meeting Lena’s eye. That can’t last forever though, and she finally glances up and Lena’s entire focus is on her.

“Nowhere.”

Lena’s eyebrow barely rises, catching the lie. But she smiles, like she knows Alex needs it.

Lena Luthor is beautiful. Her sharp jawline, eyes that are so green sometimes Alex wonders if it’s faked. Impossible a thought, but there nonetheless.

She’s never as beautiful as now, when she’s accepting Alex for what she is. What she needs.

Just then, Alex desperately wants to give her something back. More than a thank you that doesn’t even start to cover what it needs to. More than Alex’s broken need, that shattered thing that beats within her.

So she swallows and asks, “How’s Ruby?”

And god, it aches. That name scrapes her throat raw, burns her tongue. Her lips tingle and that feeling sinks all the way to her chest to layer over her heart, to push through her blood stream with each hollow _thump_.

Lena’s gaze just stays on her, steady, something to latch onto as Alex suddenly feels like all the air in the entire world is gone. Lena takes a shallow breath, her finger tips resting on the base of her wine glass. That gaze is like a burn, something that sinks into the layers of Alex’s skin to brand her. “She’s quiet.” Alex feels like she’s drowning. “She’s—shit.” And Lena stops and draws in a sharp breath, a contrast to the other. Her eyes are red and Alex wonders how much she’s been lost in this. Being responsible for Ruby. Losing Sam after so desperately trying to save her, sure she could until the chance was torn from her hands, and her research instead contributing to the weapon that Alex used to kill her. “She’s just so, immeasurably _sad_ Alex.”

Her voice is a hoarse whisper, raw, and Alex’s hand, as if on its own volition, crosses that foot of heated space and lets her fingers rest on Lena’s wrist. “I’m sorry.”

She’s sorry for so much. For not knowing this herself. For Lena being the one whose shouldered all of this. For being left in her own grief while Alex floundered in her own.

And Lena seems to know that that’s why she’s saying it. Why she’s sorry. And she shakes her head, stares up at the ceiling for a second as if she’s trying to gain control of the tears she’s refusing to let fall. Finally, she meets Alex’s eye again. “No. Don’t be. Please.”

But Alex is. She’s so sorry she thinks sometimes the guilt will crush her, for all of it. Every part of this. Every goddamn layer, from that first kiss with Sam when she appeared in Alex’s apartment, dressed as Reign but Sam in her eyes, in her rambling, shaking words, in the fear that shook in her voice, only hours from when she escape from Lena’s lab.

Sam was in the kiss she pressed to Alex’s lips, desperate and clinging and searching for something to hold on to, to cement her.

And then Sam was gone, cold air left behind and none of them saw Sam again, until Alex looked into her eyes as the life left them.

She’s so sorry.

But Alex pulls in a slow, shaking breath. Sips her wine. Leaves her fingers on Lena’s wrist, feels her pulse, just barely, under the tips of her fingers. Something to centre her. She makes herself push through. “Does Ruby talk at all?”

And it’s then, that Alex realises she’s asking not just for Lena, but for herself, as well.

And Lena’s smile is shatteringly sad, breakable, fragile, as she lets Alex ask more like it’s normal, like it’s something Alex does.

Like it’s not something huge, filling that heated space between them.

“She does. She’s just…so much quieter. It’s normal, of course. She has a lot of questions though. Things none of us can answer. Some things we can. She just, mostly, misses…” And Lena’s voice catches, that pulse under Alex’s fingers races, harder now, easier to feel. “She misses Sam.”

Alex pushes her wine glass aside, leans on the counter properly, elbows digging in and that foot of space gone as she rests her forehead against Lena’s. “Like you do,” she whispers.

Lena nods, and all there is in Alex’s vision is her eyes. “I do. Like you do, too.”

A lump is back in her throat, could choke her. But Alex nods too. “I do. So much.”

“Like you feel guilty, too.”

And Lena has spoken it out loud, put it out there, let the words fly from the barely-there space between their lips to wash over Alex. To be inhaled. And Alex, finally, gets something. “Like you do.”

And Lena must be crying, because its like being hit by the sea, the smell of salt this close. “I do.”

Because Lena made that weapon and Alex wielded it and now Sam is just no more and all that’s left behind is broken people trying to pull each other together again.

Alex’s fingers stay on that pulse, but her other hand cups Lena’s cheek, her thumb swipes over tears, she pushes her hand behind her neck and holds her there. Tips her head and presses their lips together, tastes the sea, the brittle salt, the guilt and grief and still, somehow, Lena’s pulse thumps against her fingers and Lena kisses her softly, gentle like the world could end and they’ll just sink with it there, nothing but softness to pull them under.

They do end up in bed. Because that need hasn’t gone. Something in it has shifted, stilled, or altered—but it’s still there.

And it’s terrifying.

Alex is straddling Lena’s thigh, hips moving, losing the rhythm she’s built as the feeling she’s being chasing builds and starts to crash over her, sliding over smooth skin and Lena’s thigh shifting against her. Breath catches in her chest and her palm sinks even harder into the mattress next to Lena’s pillow, her hair spread wild under her. Alex presses her face further into Lena’s neck, her lips tight against her thumping pulse, heated skin and sweat against her tongue. Her hand is between Lena’s legs, trying to keep that rhythm even as she loses her own, two fingers slipping in and out and Lena twists her head and bites Alex’s neck, drawing a groan from her and she comes, pulling away, hips still sliding against Alex’s thigh, pushes up so can stare at Lena's head thrown back again on the pillow, hair stuck to her forehead and hips shifting against Alex’s hand. She grinds her palm, and Lena’s eyes fly open, startling green. Her hand grabs the back of Alex’s neck and pulls her down into a messy kiss, nails dragging down the skin of her back, but Alex barely feels it. All she feels is the push of Lena’s thigh, the tightness around her fingers and the intensity of Lena’s eyes when that kiss ends and her forehead is pulled to hers and Lena’s open mouth so close to her own.

And it’s terrifying.

Because that need is still there, still clawing at her.

But it’s not just for sex anymore. For losing herself in lost feelings and a touch that takes her away.

It’s not just for a damning distraction.

It’s for Lena.


End file.
